A woman from Cranston, Rhode Island, who'd been missing for days was found alive in a parked vehicle Sunday, amid a criminal investigation involving the FBI. Her caregiver has been arrested.
The 45-year-old woman has autism and is nonverbal. After being found at the intersection of Cranston's Pond and Station streets, she was taken to Rhode Island Hospital for evaluation, Cranston police said in a news release.
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Roberta Gerard was arrested on charges of abuse, neglect, exploiting an adult with severe impairment and obstructing an officer, according to police. They said Gerard had worked directly with the woman for six years at the group home where the woman lives.
Gerard was appear in court this week. It wasn't immediately clear if she had an attorney who could speak to the charges.
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At 12:13 p.m., a person reported seeing the woman curled up in the back hatch of an SUV, police said at a news conference, NBC affiliate WJAR reported. She had apparently been in the SUV, which was parked for weeks, for a while.
Investigators were still determining how the woman got into the vehicle, but it was near a nail salon Gerard visited before reporting the woman missing, according to police.
The woman lives at a group home in Lincoln operated by Seven Hills Rhode Island, which released a statement Sunday after she was found saying they were "grateful to the Cranston Police Department and all additional law enforcement agencies for their extraordinary commitment and hard work."
The statement noted their deep relief that the woman was safe, and deferred questions to Cranston police amid the ongoing investigation.
The woman was last seen Wednesday afternoon, police said that day.
Authorities said Friday that a Cranston woman employed as the woman's caregiver had claimed she disappeared from a bathroom at Burlington Coat Factory. But surveillance footage determined that neither woman had been at the store.
Police said at the time that the caregiver, whom they didn't identify, gave "multiple conflicting statements" about the woman's whereabouts, prompting the department's special investigations unit to get involved.
Multiple persons of interest were interviewed after the woman disappeared, police said, noting that the FBI was taking part in the search efforts.
